


The Princess and the Olive Tree

by Lily (alyelle)



Category: Fringe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:26:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyelle/pseuds/Lily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Olivia gets drugged again, and Peter tells a fairy tale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Princess and the Olive Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Shameless fluff with a side helping of (quasi)hurt/comfort. Written ages ago for [Treehugger](http://7tree-hugger.livejournal.com/); I promptly forgot to post it after she read it. The fairy tale isn't based on anything except for S3, so if it sounds familiar, you've probably just read one too many fairy tales.
> 
> [Also archived on [dreamwidth](http://stowaway.dreamwidth.org/24301.html)]

“Olivia, look out!” 

Peter lunged forward, but the man at her feet was quicker; he sank the needle into the top of Olivia’s thigh, pushed down hard, and ran. 

“Make sure she’s alright,” Broyles spat, running after him. Peter reached her as she started to sink to the floor, and lowered her gently the rest of the way down. She was shaking, her face already drained of colour. 

“Hey,” he whispered, smoothing her hair down, “it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay. Just sit tight, we’ll fix this. Walter!”

“Behind you,” came Walter’s voice. He leant over them. “Olivia? How are you feeling?”

“Dizzy,” she said. Her eyes flicked quickly around the room.

“You can fix this, right?” Peter asked, getting to his feet. “I mean, you know what that drug is. How quickly can you make an antidote?”

“I don’t know if I can. I - ”

“You don’t _know_? What do you mean, you ‘don’t know’? You said - ” 

“I said I’d determined the compound’s basic structure. It’s a phenephthylamine, fairly simple to replicate, not unlike several of the other psychotropics. But that’s the problem. We know how this drug works on _normal_ perception. Olivia’s perceptive abilities are far from normal.”

Peter gritted his teeth. “Cortexiphan.”

“I’m afraid so, yes. There’s really no way to tell in advance how _this_ drug will behave in someone with the type of neural alterations Olivia has.”

“Well that’s just great,” he said. “Olivia, we – Olivia?”

Olivia had got to her knees and looking at the ceiling, head tipped to one side. Her eyes shone feverishly. Peter dropped down beside her.

“Olivia? What’s wrong?”

“So many butterflies,” she breathed. He shot a look at Walter.

“We should get her back to the lab,” his father said, shuffling his feet anxiously.

“You think?” Peter slipped an arm under hers and around her back. “Come on, Olivia.”

“No!” She pushed at him, still surprisingly strong. “I want to stay and play with the butterflies!”

“I don’t think so, miss.” He tightened his grip, braced himself and pulled her to her feet, catching her under the knees with the other arm as he did so. Olivia shrieked as he lifted her up.

“Put me down! Put me down, you’ll make them fly away, please.” Tears began to well in the corners of her eyes. He thought quickly.

“What if I told you there were butterflies back at the lab?” he asked.

Olivia sniffled. “Really?”

“Really.” He smiled at her, the honest one he’d reserved for marks and shady businessmen, keeping his voice low and patient. “Walter needs you to help him study them. But to do that, we need to take you out of here.”

Olivia chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, then gave a shy smile. “Okay.” 

Peter felt a sigh of relief creep out of him. “Okay. Can you walk?” He lowered her feet to the ground, slipping his arm out from around her. Her knees buckled almost instantly. “And that’s a no,” he said, quickly grabbing her again before she could fall. “Let’s do this the old fashioned way then. I’m going to pick you up again, alright? When I count to three, you put your arms around my neck and hold on tight. Got it?”

She nodded, eyes wide.

“One, two, _three_.” 

Lifting her was remarkably easier when she wasn’t struggling. She’d wrapped her arms around him as instructed and now watched him, eyes fever-bright, as if for her next instruction. He grinned at her. 

“Good work. Now let’s get you back to the butterflies.” 

Within a matter of minutes, he had both Olivia and Walter packed into the back seat of the car. Walter muttered to himself, taking her temperature every few minutes as Peter drove. Peter’s eyes flicked between the road and the rear view mirror.

“How’s she doing?”

“Aside from the fever? Her pulse is well above average. Flushed skin…” Walter flashed a penlight into her eyes. “Dilated pupils. Olivia, are you thirsty?”

She nodded.

“As I thought.” He leaned towards Peter. “So far, the drug is manifesting in much the same was as LSD.”

“She’s tripping?” Peter asked, eyebrows raised. Walter nodded. “Explains the butterflies.”

“I suspect the Cortexiphan has rapidly amplified the psychoactive elements of this drug. I’ll need to measure her neural activity to be sure, of course. And we should monitor her heart rate and blood pressure until it wears off.”

“How long is that likely to be?”

Walter frowned. “Based on the half life of the phenephthylamine, I’d have guessed an hour or two, but if her cognitive processing has been heightened … could be closer to four, maybe five.”

“Five what?” Olivia asked brightly. “Can I have ice cream?”

Peter sighed as he turned into the parking lot. “Excellent. Tripping _and_ munchies. Alright, Walter, you get into the lab and set things up. I’ll deal with Olivia.”

Walter nodded, collected up his notes, and practically leaped from the car. Peter stuck his head into the back where Olivia sat. “I want you to do exactly what you did last time, okay? Scoot over here a bit – like that, yeah – and now put your arms around me.”

“I have legs, you know,” she said seriously as he lifted her up and out of the car. He chuckled.

“I know you do. They’re very nice legs. But I don’t think you should be walking just now. So you just hang on there,” he nudged the car door shut with his hip, “and we’ll get you into the lab so you can help Walter.”

By the time he’d navigated the corridors, Walter and Astrid had the EEG machine up and running. Its red and white cables lay snaked across the desk like ropes of candy.

“Peter! Excellent. Sit her there for me, would you?” Walter motioned to the chair beside him. 

“Olivia?” Astrid asked, taking one of her hands gently. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m helping Walter catch butterflies,” Olivia replied happily.

“I see.”

“Apparently she’s tripping,” Peter said softly. “Did Walter fill you in?”

“Kind of. What happened to the guy with the drugs?”

“Broyles went after him.” He felt a sharp tug on his sleeve, and turned to see Olivia frowning at him. Her bottom lip stuck out in a pout.

“You said I could have ice cream.”

“And you can!” Walter exclaimed before Peter could reply. “Aspen and I will go to the store now and get some just for you.”

Olivia’s pout eased slightly. “Strawberry?”

“Absolutely!” he beamed. “Wonderful choice. But first, I need you to sit back for a moment. Try to be very still. Peter, attach those electrodes to her pulse points.” 

Peter picked up the bunch of cables, untangling them as best he could, and began pressing the sticky white tabs onto Olivia’s skin. Temples, chest, wrist; he ticked them off in his head as he went. Olivia’s eyes followed his hands as he worked. 

“Will you tell me a story?”

“A story?” He looked at her for a moment then shrugged. “Sure. What about?”

“I don’t know. It’s your story.”

Peter pressed the last electrode onto her hip and stepped back. “Okay then. Once upon a time - ”

“Why do people always start with ‘once upon a time’?”

“Because that’s how all good stories start. So – once upon a time, in a land far away - ”

“What was it called?”

“Bostonia. Any more questions?”

Olivia chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Nope.”

“So I can keep going?”

“Yes.” She settled back into the chair with a serene smile. Her eyes closed and then, after a second, flew open again. “I mean, yes please.”

Peter bit back a grin. “Nice manners you’ve got there, Olivia. Okay. Close your eyes again and just listen. Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a princess. She lived in a castle, high up a hill, so high that from the top of its towers you could see all the land below. But the princess didn’t spend a lot of time in the towers. At the bottom of the castle, in her garden, there was an olive tree, and she spent her days taking care of it, or sitting under its branches, or making magic potions from its fruit.”

He stepped back, satisfied that all the electrodes were attached properly, and gave Walter a quick thumbs up. “She’s ready, Walter.”

“Good. Olivia,” Walter sidestepped his son and deftly slipped a blood pressure cuff up over her arm, “you’re going to feel a slight pinch – yes, like that. Excellent! Now, we’re all going to listen to Peter’s story - ”

“Great,” Peter murmured drily under his breath. 

“ - and I want you to just lie back and relax.” Walter grabbed a clipboard from beside the monitors and, scribbling notes as he walked, made his way toward the chemicals that sat bubbling above the burners at the far end of the lab. 

_Apparently not going to listen to the story after all_ , Peter thought with a wry grin. He took Olivia’s hand in his, giving it a quick squeeze. 

“You okay?”

She nodded. He leaned back against the edge of the desk, crossed his arms, and continued.

“The princess shared her castle with a knight, who guarded her and the tree by night and day, all through the summer and all through the winter. Because this tree wasn’t just any tree. In fact, there was no other tree like it in the entire kingdom. Its fruit was as gold as the sun’s rays, and as silver as the light of the moon, and its leaves were the green of the deepest ocean. And the princess, who was like no other princess before or since, could use the fruit to heal the sick, help the helpless, and to mend broken hearts.”

A smile drifted across Olivia’s lips. “What was her name?”

“No one knew. But because she spent all of her days taking care of the tree, her land became known as the Olive Tree Kingdom, and the people called her the Olive Princess.”

“I like her.”

“I thought you might.” A lock of hair had slipped free from her ponytail, and his fingers reached out involuntarily, tucking it in behind her ear. Her eyes fluttered open, dazedly searching out his face. He ghosted his hand over them. “Shhh. Close your eyes, remember?”

She closed her eyes.

“Now, in a land even further away, there was another princess, who looked a lot like ours. It was never summer in this land, only ever fall, and the trees stayed orange and red and brown all year round. And so this princess was called the Amber Princess.

The Amber Princess had no olive tree in her kingdom, and no knight to protect her. For years she’d been under the spell of a dark wizard. This wizard was jealous and greedy, and he wanted to have the olive tree for his own, because he thought it could give him eternal life. He knew he could never take the tree himself though, because the knight wouldn’t trust him. So one day he sent his princess out into the world with an enchanted knife. He told her to travel to the Olive Tree Kingdom, to find the tree that the knight guarded and, when she’d plucked all the fruit that she could from it, to cut it through. If she did this, if she brought the fruit and the wood of the olive tree back to him, then her people would live forever with no sickness or misery or broken hearts to worry them ever again.”

“Peter?” Astrid pitched her voice low and soft, but it was still enough to make him jump slightly. “Sorry,” she winced. “I’m gonna take Walter to the store. If you’re - ”

He nodded. “Sure, I’ll be fine. It’s mainly watching the monitors, and if that’s as bad as it gets, I’ll take Agent Dunham on drugs over shopping with Walter any day.”

“Good point.”

He waited as the door creaked and then closed behind her before turning back to where Olivia lay. Her breathing had evened out, and the red flush seemed to be fading from her cheeks. The strands of hair had come loose from behind her ear again. He tucked them back into place, and pressed his hand to her forehead. Her fever was definitely lower.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” he replied.

“What happened next?”

“I’m glad you asked. The Amber Princess, who looked so much like our Olive Princess, travelled for a long time, through valleys and over mountains, until it seemed like she’d crossed the entire world. When she finally came to the castle, she stopped for a moment and watched. She saw the tree, with its gold and silver fruits shining amongst dark green leaves. She saw the Olive Princess plucking them one by one to put into her basket. She saw the knight who stood guard over the tree, and she saw how his eyes followed his princess wherever she went. And so she smiled, because she knew then that the knight loved her and that it would make her task an easy one.

When the sun had almost set and the moon was beginning to peek out from its house of clouds, the Amber Princess took the knife the wizard had given her and slipped it under her cloak. She ruffled up her long golden hair and ran to the tree as if a hundred-hundred wolves pursued her. When the knight saw her, he dropped to one knee, thinking she was his own princess from the tower on the hill, for they looked so alike.

‘My lady,’ he said, and she took his hand the way she had seen the other princess do. 

‘Oh, quickly, you must help me! There is a dreadful sickness coming, and we will have to pick all of the fruit by nightfall to save our people.’ 

And so the knight helped her. One by one, the shining fruits fell into the basket the wizard had given her, and as the knight picked off the last silver olive, the princess took the enchanted knife and struck the tree through to its center. But it was older and stronger than she was, and the knife stuck fast. Panicking, she scooped up the basket of fruit, left the knife in the tree and fled the way she had come as quickly as she could. 

When the knight saw what the princess had done, he knew it was not his princess and that he’d been tricked, and he fell to his knees in shame. All night he stayed there, and when the first rays of morning sun touched the garden, he saw that the beautiful green leaves of the tree had withered and died. The Olive Princess came down from her tower after sunrise to find the knight standing miserably beside the tree he had failed to protect. And though he tried to explain what had happened, she wouldn’t listen. Instead, she struck him in anger, and banished him from her sight. 

For a year she sat beneath the tree she had tended so carefully and cried for its life, and for her people – because without the fruit of the magic olive tree, she couldn’t heal the sick, or help the helpless, and she couldn’t mend broken hearts. So the land, which had once been beautiful, sank into despair.”

“I don’t think I like this story anymore,” Olivia said, her lower lip trembling slightly. Peter took her hand, lacing his fingers into hers.

“You will. I promise.” She tightened her grip a little and he continued. “For a year the princess cried, and for a year her knight watched her from the shadows that grew darker and deeper outside the castle grounds. Every day she watered the tree with her tears, but the leaves didn’t turn green again, and the fruit didn’t grow back. 

But the dark wizard had no happiness from the fruit either. When the Amber Princess had uncovered the basket, he saw that the precious olives she had picked had turned soft and dull, and could not give him the everlasting life that he wanted. He was so angry that he flew into a rage. He threw the basket across the room and the princess, who had been away from his spells and enchantments for such a long time while she travelled, saw finally that he had evil in his heart, and she locked him up the deepest, darkest dungeon. For a long time she sat, thinking on what they had done and how she could fix it. And then, taking her cloak in hand, she picked up the basket, put as much of the fruit as she could find back into it, and set off once again for the Olive Tree Kingdom. 

Her walk was even harder this time, without the wizard’s spells to help her but she arrived at last one afternoon, as the sun was sinking into a cold grey night. She stopped like she’d done before, and watched. She saw the tree, still brown and dead, and the Olive Princess crying beneath it. She saw the knight watching from the shadows, and read his broken heart in his eyes, and knew that he still loved her. And so she picked up the basket of fruit, drew back her hood, and walked up to where the princess sat beneath the tree.”

A creak sounded behind him, and Peter spun to see Astrid clutching several heavy plastic bags, Walter licking a disturbingly bright concoction of what he assumed was ice-cream, and Agent Broyles wearing his customary frown. He let go of Olivia’s hand.

“Well?” Broyles asked, and Peter smiled. Ever a man of few words, he thought to himself.

“She’s fine. I think,” he added, and then quickly looked around. “Walter?”

“What? Oh, yes.” Walter peered at the monitor, somehow managing to not drip ice-cream all over the keyboard, and nodded. “Stable heart rate… smooth levels of brain activity, blood pressure normal – yes, I would venture to say our Agent Dunham has survived her little trip quite intact. Better than intact, actually. Perhaps something in the Cortexiphan - ”

“Walter,” Peter said sharply, raising an eyebrow. He wondered if that was a smirk that had just crossed Broyle’s face.

“Walter, why don’t you help me put these groceries away?” Astrid said, and Walter nodded again.

“Of course,” Walter said. “I’ll just…”

“Where’s the guy?” Peter asked once his father was out of earshot.

“In custody,” said Broyles. “Is she really alright?”

“Yeah, Walter said the drug metabolised quickly, within hours. Which means she should be coming out of it pretty soon.”

“Good. I’d appreciate if you kept an eye on her, Bishop. If anything changes, I want to be the first to hear about it.”

“Of course.”

Peter watched the door swing shut for the second time that afternoon, checked that Walter was still busy helping Astrid, and settled back against the desk beside Olivia. Her hand had fallen to her side, and her breathing was deeper now.

“Olivia?”

Her eyes opened slowly, with obvious effort, still clouded and dazed.

“Your eyes are pretty.”

He swallowed a smile. “So are yours, princess.” 

As her eyes slipped closed again, she smiled, exhausted and exquisite. Pulling the chair out from behind the desk, he sat beside her and waited. The heart monitor ticked on steadily; the blood pressure cuff inflated and deflated twice. At some point, Walter exclaimed that he’d forgotten the bananas and quick, Astronaut, they’d better get back to the shops before they closed. Peter never heard them leave. Olivia slept, and he measured his time by the rise and fall of her chest, the flutter of her lashes as she cycled through REM states, the way her fingers clenched every so often.

“Son?” The whisper behind him was softer and gentler than he could ever remember Walter being. “I think we can take this off now.” 

His hands moved to slide the pressure cuff back down Olivia’s arm and she shifted in the chair, drawing in a deep breath. This time when her eyes opened, they were clear; tired, yes, but brighter than before and without the fevered glaze. He couldn’t stop the grin he felt forming on his face.

“Hey, you. How are you feeling?”

“Better.” She looked up at Walter, who had started to unstick the electrodes. “Am I - ”

“You’re fine, dear. The drug was… Let’s just say you’ve had worse.”

“A walk in the park for the Cortexiphan kid, then?”

“Quite.” His smile was melancholy, and Olivia reached out to pat his hand. 

“It’s okay, Walter.”

“Well. The important thing is you’re alright. Safe, and as healthy as you’ve ever been. I should imagine after a nice long sleep, you’ll be good as new.” He frowned slightly, and added, “Though you may want to drink more fluids than normal. The chemical structure of this drug is not unlike that of LSD, and I seem to remember my own experiences with acid left me quite parched for days.”

“Thanks, Walter,” Peter said as Olivia fought back a laugh. “How about you go get Olivia some water, then? I’ll pack these up.”

“Oh. Oh, yes,” he winked at Olivia. “Yes, of course.”

“Ever the subtle one.” Peter rolled his eyes slightly.

“Leave him. He means well.”

“Don’t get me started.” He sat back on the chair beside her. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Aside from the bone-numbing tiredness and the pounding headache?” She grinned. “I’m fine, Peter. Although…”

He frowned, fingers straying to brush against hers. “What?”

“You never finished your story.” She slipped her hand into his. “What happened to the princess and her knight?”

“Well.” He ran a hand across the stubble on his chin. “The Amber Princess from the other kingdom had found them, remember?”

“I remember.”

“She sat down beside the Olive Princess, underneath the tree, and gave her the basket of fruit she had stolen for the wizard.

‘I can never apologise,’ she said, ‘but there is a reason for what I have done.’ And she told the Olive Princess her story, of the kingdom with no olive tree, and the dark wizard who had enchanted her, and of the people who had lived for so long with sickness and helplessness and broken hearts. As she spoke, night fell around them, and the Olive Princess cried again, but not for herself. She cried for the girl who looked like her and had no one to protect her, and for the people from a land she couldn’t help. Her tears fell onto the basket in her lap, and one by one, the fruits that that been stolen began to shine again, silver and gold, and tiny green shoots grew from them, unfurling into leaves of the deepest green.

The moon rose up above them, and the Olive Princess saw what had happened to the fruit in the basket and jumped up with a cry of joy. The basket tipped over, scattering some of the fruit, and where they fell, the green shoots dug into the earth and took root, and tiny new trees sprang up around them. Quickly she picked up the basket, which was still half full, and she hugged the Amber Princess close.

‘Take this,’ she said, ‘and go back to your people. Tend to these trees carefully, by night and day, and you will be able to heal the sick, and help the helpless, and to mend all the broken hearts.’

‘And who will mend yours?’ asked the Amber Princess, but Olive Princess just smiled and said nothing. So she left with the basket, and after many days she returned to her kingdom. She did as the Olive Princess had said, caring for the tiny plants by night and day, and soon they grew into strong healthy trees. Their leaves were a deep burnished red, like the leaves of autumn trees that grew around them, but the fruit shone silver and gold, and the princess used it to heal the sick and help the helpless, and to mend all the broken hearts she could find.”

“And the Olive Princess?”

Peter smiled. “The Olive Princess watched until the Amber Princess disappeared from sight, and then she walked to the very edge of the castle grounds, to where the deepest shadows lay.

‘I’m sorry,” she said, very softly, to the darkness. The knight who had stood outside her castle for a year stepped out into the light.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I am the sorry one. I love you, and have always loved you, and I should have protected you and your tree. For this, I beg your forgiveness.’

The Olive Princess shook her head, taking the knight’s hands in her own. ‘There is nothing to forgive,’ she said, and kissed him once as the moon sank down into the morning and the first rays of sun greeted the land. As she did, the olive tree which had been withered and brown slowly uncurled its leaves, growing greener and newer as the sun rose. Its fruit sparkled in the branches, gold and silver, and its leaves shone in the morning light. But the silver was the silver of the princess’ tears, for the tree had tasted her sorrow, and the gold was the gold of her hair, for it had heard her joy. And the leaves were no longer the deep green of the ocean, but the soft, spring green of the princess’ eyes, for the tree had felt her mend a broken heart.”

Olivia sat up, still holding Peter’s hand, and swung her legs over the edge of the chair. “And then what happened?”

“Then? They walked back into the castle, hand in hand, and lived happily ever after.”

“Lucky princess.”

“No,” he said softly, rising from where he sat. He tipped her chin up, and pressed a kiss to her lips, wrapping his arms around her. “Lucky knight.”


End file.
